Vol. 72/No. 8      February 25, 2008

Death and maiming at work are preventable—if the health and safety of workers is the priority.

The February 7 blast at the Imperial Sugar refinery, which has claimed six lives thus far, is a good example. Sugar dust is combustible. It can be controlled in a refinery just like coal dust can be controlled in a mine.

Yet in the last 30 years more than 300 explosions of food dust have killed 120 workers. No federal regulations penalize employers who let the dust pile up, except in grain-handling facilities.

Fire officials say materials in the Imperial refinery that were nearly a century old contributed to the ferocity of the fire that swept the building. The refinery’s outdated water system meant water pressure was weak when firefighters arrived. In factory after factory, bosses refuse to organize elementary maintenance and repairs of facilities and equipment. That would cut across the time we spend producing wealth to line their pockets.

Karl Marx, one of the founders of the modern communist movement, wrote in 1867 that the factories are the site of “systematic robbery of what is necessary for the life of the worker while he is at work, i.e. space, light, air, and protection against the dangerous or the unhealthy concomitants of the production process.” He warned that the factory owners will never pay heed to the safety of the workers unless forced to do so by trade union struggles and by independent, working-class political action. That statement remains true today.

It is only by organizing unions and using union power that workers can begin to combat the consequences of capitalism’s drive for profits on our lives and limbs. The unions need to fight for control of line speed, job conditions, organization of work, and protection of the surrounding environment. They should demand the bosses open up their books so workers can see their “business secrets” for what they are: efforts to maximize their profits at the expense of the health and safety of the working class.

This fight cannot be limited to the workplace. It must also take place in the political arena. The working class needs its own political party, a labor party based on the unions, that will take on the Democrats, Republicans, and any other parties of the employers. That will be a step toward building the kind of revolutionary movement that can replace the capitalist rulers with a government of workers and farmers.
 
 
Related articles:
Sugar refinery explosion kills 6 workers in Georgia
Number of packinghouse workers diagnosed with neurological disease grows
Sweden: iron miner working 2,300 feet below ground killed  
 
 
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